About Us

Hello Shello! My name is Rina, and I am the founder & beachcombing maker of Nostalgem.

It started early. I was the kind of child who came home with pockets full of things nobody else thought to pick up — oddly shaped pebbles, dragonfly wings, leaves with bug holes. Even the occasional dried beetle.

My grandmother’s garden was my first museum, and a tin chocolate box shaped like a tiny house was my first cabinet of curiositues. 

That habit never left me.

When my family spent holidays in the Bay of Islands, I’d be wandering the shoreline with the kids, turning shells and seaweed air bladders into impromptu necklaces.

n 2016 we made it permanent — left Auckland and moved into our holiday home in Kerikeri.

 The beach became less of a destination and more of a daily commute. 

I’m still beachcombing. Still collecting things most people walk past.

I’m inspired by the old cabinets of curiosities, where explorers displayed what they’d gathered from the world.

That same instinct is in every piece I make — the belief that something small and overlooked can become something worth keeping.

I don’t cast replicas. I use the actual pieces: real shells, real bone, real botanicals. Every flaw is left exactly as nature made it, because that’s where the character lives.

My creative processes include hand-sculpting with clay, kintsugi gilding, and electroplating.

Nature is our quiet storyteller. I hope you find a piece that tells a little of yours.

With sandy hands and a salty heart,
Rina Ward